1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a stringed musical instrument—having a support—that facilitates playing in a more ergonomic manner than known stringed musical instruments, thereby improving the musician's comfort and ease in playing the instrument.
2. Discussion of Prior Art
With greater understanding of human biomechanics, musicians strive to make their playing more ergonomic; comfort and ease of playing are ever more important in achieving better results. Any improvement of the interface between the musical instrument and the human body must be achieved without violating principles of human biomechanics (i.e., without imposing unnatural body positions, motions, or restrictions).
The dimensions of the instruments of the violin family (violin, viola, cello, and bass) are dictated by acoustical requirements of the strings and the appropriate resonating body; lower pitched instruments require longer strings and a larger resonance body. Built to meet the resulting structural requirements, these instruments are not designed for the comfort and ease of use of the musician. Further, many years of tradition have resulted in instrument makers doing little to improve the interface between instrument and musician; it is the musicians who are constantly advancing the playing technique to achieve greater comfort and ease while playing. Victor Sazer's Book, “New Directions in Cello Playing: How to Make Cello Playing Easier and Play Without Pain,” is an example of an attempt to improve the playing technique in order to compensate for (not remedy) the known problems of said interface.
The cello has several unfavorable structural features that hinder the playing of the instrument. Cellists are known to have a high incidence of back pain and carpal tunnel syndrome, and in 1992 the Juilliard School of Music established an on-campus staff of physical therapists to treat performance-related injuries.
Although cellos can be built to fit a specific person, most are built for the non-existent “average person”; i.e., in a size and shape that is a compromise for every musician. Further, even though cellos can be made in different sizes, the proportions of the component parts remain the same such that some of the problems caused by the size and shape of the cello are not addressed.
For instance, although the height and angle (relative to the human body) of the instrument can be adjusted by changing the length of the protruding endpin section, the adjustment must still find a compromise between the comfort of the musician's right and left hands, legs and chest, and the position of the instrument's head relative to the musician's head.
Another problem is the biased orientation of the cello (as well as other string instruments) in favor of either the left arm's comfort or the right arm's comfort; i.e., the cello is tilted either toward the left side, allowing a more ergonomic range of motion for the musician's left arm, or toward the right side, allowing a more ergonomic range of motion for the right arm. U.S. Pat. No. 4,534,260 to Burrell (1985) and U.S. Pat. No. 6,034,308 to Little (2000) propose a fingerboard structure having a twist along its longitudinal axis to allow more ergonomic motion for both the musician's arms; this approach offers a solution for only part of the fingerboard and it requires elaborate construction.
Further, the cello's longitudinal axis and the longitudinal axis of the instrument's fingerboard can not be positioned on the anatomical median plane of the musician's body, often resulting in a twisted spine, a locked left elbow and string crossings that can not be accomplished in an ergonomic manner. While the instrument's longitudinal axis is usually not identical to the longitudinal axis of the instrument's fingerboard, the playing position and symmetry of a cello imply that the longitudinal axis of the fingerboard can be positioned on the anatomical median plane of the musician's body only if the instrument's longitudinal axis is positioned on said plane.
Other problems with the left hand are well known to instructors and musicians alike. These problems include the unnaturally high position of the left hand in known “lower” positions, the fact that a student does not get visual feedback while playing in these positions, as well as the unnaturally wide spread of the left hand in said positions, requiring constant adjustment of the now non-equidistant finger spread (the human hand has an equidistant finger spread when kept in its natural spread width).
The misalignment of the cello's pivot point (on the floor) and the musician's pivot axis when swaying the upper body from side to side (at about sitting level) changes the position of the cello relative to the musician's body; thus a musician is forced to choose either to not sway or to develop a technique that adjusts to this always changing interface. Supporting the cello without the use of an endpin—musicians specializing in baroque music often use period instruments without endpins—gives the musician the freedom to move while maintaining the instrument's position relative to position of the human body. However, supporting the instrument's weight with the legs is quite tiresome, the reason why most modern cellists prefer to use an endpin.
The interface between floor and endpin (ball joint type) enables the cello to rotate around its longitudinal axis; the musician must thus constantly maintain the cello's stability by using the legs, chest, and sometimes the left hand. The points of contact (bow-string interfaces) are not located on the instrument's longitudinal axis, causing bow movement to induce disturbance of the instrument's rotational stability.
The use of an endpin is problematic for other reasons as well. The interface between the floor and the endpin must provide enough friction to prevent the endpin from slipping, while the floor surface must be protected. There are many known devices related to this problem; for instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,370,911 to Goldner (1983) shows a pointless endpin attachment for the cello. Although this support appears to prevent rotation of the instrument around its longitudinal axis, the surface area of attachment contacting the floor is in fact too small to prevent the described rotation. An example of a widely used nonstop endpin holder is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,696,338 to Grissom (1997). This device allows the endpin to pivot freely, but permits the undesired rotation around the instrument's longitudinal axis.
Cellos are played in positions that range from vertical to almost horizontal. While the endpin supports most of the instrument's weight in a vertical playing position, the musician has to support more of that weight when approaching a horizontal playing position, because the instrument's center of gravity is not directly supported by the endpin. U.S. Pat. No. 4,586,418 to Stahlhammer (1986) claims a bent endpin structure, thereby moving the interface between endpin and floor to better support the instrument's center of gravity. While this device reduces the effective weight of the instrument bearing on the musician, the distance between the instrument's rotational pivot axis (defined by the endpin's interface with floor and the instrument's interface with the musician at the chest) and the point of contact (the interface between bow and string) is increased, causing bow movement to induce more disturbance to the instrument's rotational stability. U.S. Pat. No. 5,297,771 to Gilbert (1994) discloses a similar device for the double bass.
A better way of supporting the instrument would be to elevate it by a stationary support, thus moving the instrument's pivot point to just under the instrument, as illustrated in a portrait (c. 1690) painted by Constantin Netscher; shown is a bass viol player standing with the viol supported on a small stool. This approach still fails to prevent the instrument's rotation around its longitudinal axis.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,814,229 to Vaccaro (1957) discloses a musical instrument support that is intended to facilitate playing the violin or viola “positioned astride the thighs” supporting the instrument on the lap with the scroll resting against the neck. Rotation of the instrument around its longitudinal axis remains problematic, as now the player has to use his/her left hand to stabilize the instrument. In addition, this support is not very stable, being based on the player's legs.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,789,677 to Johnson (1998) shows a chair-based instrument support, used for a tuba, freeing the musician's legs from having to support such a heavy instrument. This support is not useful for string players, because it allows the stringed instrument to rotate around its longitudinal axis, thereby restricting the musician's freedom of motion by forcing him/her to stabilize the instrument.
Bassoon players often support their instrument at about seat height using a strap that is tucked under the seat. This free pivoting support works well for the bassoon; rotation around its longitudinal axis is easily controlled by the player's hands.
Another problem of playing a bowed string instrument is the misalignment of known “points of contact”. The point of contact describes the ideal point of interface between the bow and the string, all other parameters (bow speed and bow pressure) being constant; the point of contact is different for each string (distance from bridge greater for lower pitched strings). The player must constantly compensate for this misalignment by either adjusting the bow to agree with the point of contact or changing other parameters (such as bow speed and bow pressure) in order to change the point of contact.
The fingerboard topology of string instruments (the arrangement of finger placements on the fingerboard) is determined by the orientation of the nut and the bridge, traditionally being perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the fingerboard (guitar frets are parallel to the bridge). The natural direction/orientation of the musician's fingers, however, is different for each playing position; especially when playing barred chords, the hand's orientation needs to be adjusted to correspond with the fingerboard topology.
Similar problems are found with other members of the violin family. The violin (or viola) is entirely supported by the musician, thus offering the advantage of moving congruently with the musician's torso. Held between the musician's shoulder and chin, the violin's position—as well as left hand playing technique—is known for its non-ergonomic nature.
While there are many chin and shoulder rests claiming to improve comfort of the musician, only the following two approaches seem to adequately address the problem. U.S. Pat. Des. 338,222 to Steinberger (1993) shows an electric violin with just the essential features, thereby reducing the weight of the instrument. U.S. Pat. No. 5,780,756 to Babb (1998) introduces a new support system utilizing the musician's shoulder and neck but not the chin.
Plucked string instruments also have some of the same disadvantages and limitations. The orientation of the guitar, in particular the fingerboard, often causes problems for the left arm; guitar players who play their instrument in an almost horizontal position have discovered that this position induces considerable stress on the musician's left wrist, resulting in some of the same types of chronic injury as listed above.
An often overlooked problem is the overuse of the left hand's thumb which is used to apply counter pressure for all other playing fingers. For this reason, some guitar players have begun playing their instruments in a position similar to that of a cellist, sometimes even supporting them with an endpin.
The development of the electric pickup provided an opportunity to address some of these ergonomic shortcomings; its ability to amplify the natural volume of an instrument or to even replace the resonating body altogether changes the paradigm of instrument construction.
However, as far as is known, the approach used by the electric string instrument makers has been to imitate both the features and structural dimensions of the acoustic counterpart to make the transition from acoustic to electric an easy one; despite some ergonomic improvements over their acoustic counterparts, most electric instruments imitate the “feel” of the acoustic instrument. U.S. Pat. Des. 419,587 to Okamura (2000), and U.S. Pat. No. 6,255,565 (2001), U.S. Pat. No. 6,414,234 (2002), both to Tamura, show electric instruments with almost traditional instrument body outlines in form of permanent, foldable, or detachable (for storage only) structures, thus still hindering playing comfort.
Innovative electric cello designs by makers such as Jensen and Steinberger have omitted much of the traditional body outline; they do, however, include knee braces, endpin, and chest support, thus still maintaining the playing posture of the acoustic counterpart.
There are some bowed string instruments that are played in positions different from those of the violin family.
The chianuri, or two-string bowed lute, is played with the body of the instrument resting between the musician's legs, but the head of the instrument rests against the shoulder such that the instrument is not positioned on the musician's median plane.
Kirghiz musicians play a two-string fiddle, the kiak, and musicians in the Rajasthan area of Northern India play two bowed lutes, the sindhi-sarangi and gujrati-sarangi, in much the same way.
The kemence, a three-string bowed lute found on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, rests on the player's thigh and leans back against the shoulder, and therefore is not positioned on the player's median plane.
A number of so-called spike fiddles are known, including the Kemane spike fiddle, the esraj, diluba, saringda, chikara, ghichak (Tajikstan), k'amanch'a (Armenia), juza (Iraq), kemanche (Northern India and Azerbaijan), gheichek, or short-necked fiddle (Baluchistan), and rêbab (Java). Spike fiddles are generally held upright on the knee, leaning back against the chest, or with the musician seated cross-legged and the scroll balanced against the upturned right foot and the other end of the instrument under the chin. Like the other instruments listed, they are not positioned on the median plane of the musician's body and therefore do not address many of the disadvantages and limitations described above.
Each instrument of the violin family has a different playing technique; while playing the violin is similar to playing the viola, the cello technique is quite different from that for violin. Most school orchestra teachers are currently teaching all (bowed) string instruments at the same time; having a universal technique for all string instruments would certainly improve the situation. Attempts have been made to develop such string instruments that are alternatives to the instruments of the violin family: U.S. Pat. No. 3,969,971 to Delu (1976) introduces the VIODES system, a family of bowed string instruments of identical overall length, in particular string length, but in graduated widths and depths. While all these instruments can be played using the same technique, they do not offer any ergonomic advantages.
The members of the violin family, being non-fretted string instruments, offer a great advantage over their fretted ancestors by providing total freedom of pitch control for achieving better intonation. This obvious advantage, however, is accompanied by a major drawback: until a musician has mastered the skills of utilizing this freedom of pitch control, poor intonation is a great obstacle to an enjoyable musical experience. Most school orchestra programs suffer from this dilemma, losing numerous students to the band program. While a fretted fingerboard would provide temporary relief, students would eventually have to retrofit their instruments with non-fretted boards once they have achieved sufficient mastery.